


a way out of the dark

by princegrantaire



Series: little by little [5]
Category: DCU (Comics), Justice Society of America (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Gay Character, Coming Out, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Infinite Frontier (DCU), Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Infinite Frontier (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29959755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/pseuds/princegrantaire
Summary: “So, how’s it feel?” Todd calls out to the fast approaching figure of his father in mid-air, glowing fainter than he should among the last tendrils of light the dusk allows. There’s a grace to Alan in flight, never displayed elsewhere, as if it’s only here he finds no need for force.(Immediately post-Infinite Frontier. Todd & Alan discuss recent revelations.)
Relationships: Alan Scott & Todd Rice, Damon Matthews/Todd Rice
Series: little by little [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044231
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	a way out of the dark

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY CANON GAY ALAN MONTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE WON!!!!!!!
> 
> i'm drowning in uni assignments but i had to very quickly write my own take on the consequences of alan's coming out in infinite frontier. while i think his story is genuinely impeccable for a mainstream comic and i'm forever grateful that it plays out as close to my dreams as possible & leaves nothing ambiguous about alan's sexuality, i think it's a shame that a lot of modern content opts to smooth out alan's edges to the point of rendering his personality nearly unrecognisable
> 
> there's a paul levitz quote from a retrospective on his all-star comics run that really encompasses the perfect characterisation: "When his crisis came, it totalled him. Here's a 57 year old man, who has put his whole life into two things: a company and a non-profit career as a super-hero. He has no family, and his only close friend is off on another planet (everybody does remember Doiby Dickles, don't they?). His company goes kaput, naturally he isn't far behind.". so, it's this alan -- the real alan, i might say -- that you'll be seeing here.
> 
> takes place in the same streamlined canon as my previous entries in this series -- molly is the kids' mother, she & alan divorced ages ago, alan has been closeted his whole life. his coming out scene went just a tiny bit different.

“So, how’s it feel?” Todd calls out to the fast approaching figure of his father in mid-air, glowing fainter than he should among the last tendrils of light the dusk allows. There’s a grace to Alan in flight, never displayed elsewhere, as if it’s only here he finds no need for force.

The Obsidian of this afternoon, the shadows and the cape, had been a fluke. Undeserved politeness, really. With heroics left five years behind, Todd feels ill-prepared for guests of the super-powered variety, underdressed in his shorts, socks and Damon’s last clean t-shirt. He’d made a run for the balcony at the first stirrings of an evening about to turn unpleasant, though it’s hard to tell what had tipped him off -- a speck of green in the sky, the wind dragging in the vague aroma of ozone through the open door. It could have meant anything at all but Todd had known. Despite himself, he’d _known_.

He watches Alan land with a thud and no small amount of interest, a sort of tension coiled tight around his broad shoulders. Out of place in-between a potted plant that’s seen better days and a couple of chairs Todd and Damon had dragged out here at the height of a summer that’s long since passed, the immensity of Alan never fails to startle.

At some point, during those rare childhood glimpses of an absent father, Todd might have imagined he’d live to see the day he’d no longer find himself dwarfed by the solid wall that is Alan. It strikes him, in hindsight, as a thoroughly and unfairly hilarious thought. He’s tall but no one’s the Green Lantern. Speaking of, in the here and now, that’s what Alan’s chosen to be. An apparition from a past Todd had thought forgotten. If sunnier shores had leaped to mind first, there’s the reminder of Ian Karkull’s machinations and the sharp sting of his father’s light against his darkness, too.

It lives within Todd, that persistent wound of betrayal.

There’s vindication and, after a fashion, pride in having heard Alan speak the words he’d choked on a year ago in the penthouse but Todd’s kind of scars are unlikely to heal.

He’s imagined it before and not even once had he expected the tears to fall or the quiet mourning of Alan’s whole being. It’s harder and harder, past the exhilaration of the act itself, to reconcile the man who’d looked him and Jennie in the eye and had managed to say _it_ with the father who used to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, the GBC CEO with a penchant for making his secretaries cry or the Lantern unworthy of the Corps. There is no outlet for that helpless rage.

In the present, Alan looks past Todd’s shoulder and into the modest fifth floor apartment he’s come to call home and sighs. “You’d think he’d do better on a DA’s salary,” he remarks.

Now, that’s-- _that’s_ Alan.

Todd snorts. “Did you come here to judge my boyfriend?” There are times, he thinks, when he could go blow for blow with Alan. The urge is foreign but not the sentiment, not when it comes to Damon and the life they’ve built together. Having found his own happiness and survived the discovery of it, Todd had never accounted for Alan.

And there’s no accounting for the way Alan bows his head either, the unfamiliarity of defeat looking bizarre on him and fitting oddly, as if it’s something he’s outgrown by now.

“No,” he says, quiet and firm, like there’s only a limited number of options to go about it and Alan’s weighing every single one. “Have you spoken to your sister?” It’s a simple question but there’s a history buried there and Todd never likes thinking much about a game of favourites only he seems to have been made aware of.

Unlike Jennie, he’s never been under the illusion that Alan and Molly had ever as much as considered trying to work things out. Todd hadn’t know the reason then, wouldn’t know for years to come, but he’d seen the screaming matches and missed dinners, his mother’s empty bed when he’d come running after a nightmare -- half submerged in shadows she hadn’t had a clue what to do about -- and Alan’s prone form on the living room couch night after night. Jennie, by denial and predisposition alike, had talked herself into hope, accepted flimsy excuses and willingly fallen for belated birthday gifts that invariably extended to a party of one.

It’s difficult to blame her for it, though Todd used to find the closeness enviable. He understands, now, that his sister had been the safe choice.

Todd shakes his head. For all that had made her Alan’s golden girl, Jennie had run out in tears. The culmination of what she had perceived as a lifetime of lies, maybe. “I haven’t but-- I’m pretty sure she thinks I already knew,” Todd ventures to say, still leaning against the doorway as if he’s unthinkingly made himself a physical barrier between his father in the balcony and the apartment at his back.

Part of him, removed from the impossibility of this past afternoon, still lingers on the laundry he’d been in the middle of folding and wonders what Damon’s likely to pick up for dinner on his way home from work. Life, Todd has long learned, has a way of carrying on without consulting anyone on the matter. It’s not his tragedy to sink into.

“Didn’t you?”

Alan has forgone the mask and the blue of his eyes is stark, thawed only slightly by recent revelations. He stands his ground.

“Not before that day at GBC, no,” and Todd takes a deep breath before he pushes on, half loathing his own sympathy, “but I know what it’s like worrying the world’s gonna know the answer before you do. You weren’t ever... I wouldn’t have guessed.” There’s relief in that, he’s keenly aware of it. “Jen just didn’t expect it, she’s spent a lot of time hoping you and mom-- Well, she’s spent a lot of time hoping. She’ll come around eventually.”

The stakes are higher than Todd’s ever had but the fear is the same and if there’s anything he knows, it’s fear. The Shadowlands have ensured as much. Grateful, Alan nods like it takes everything he’s got.

“The whole time...” he starts, faltering, “... the whole time Jennie-Lynn was crying, looking at me for answers, I could only think--” Alan gives a sharp exhale tainted by bitter amusement and Todd watches yet another side of the father he finds he’s never really met. “I could only think about GBC’s shareholders and how likely they are to back outta the whole thing if-- _when_ I go public. I can take this, I thought, watching my daughter fall apart, but I can’t take the company collapsing again. Isn’t that just awful?”

There’s nothing to be said to that but Todd’s eyes have gone very wide through no fault of his own. _Yes_ , he wants to say, _it’s cruel_ but the words stick to the roof of his mouth. It’s who Alan’s always been, after all.

The Gotham Broadcasting Company, his radio career, that’s everything Alan has ever wanted and built from the ground up. He and Jennie, on the other hand, they’re--

“Does the guilt ever go away?” Alan asks and he’s terrifyingly earnest about it.

Whatever he and Jennie are, the fact of the matter is that Alan had sought _him_ out. It means enough. “Eventually,” Todd decides, risking a hand on Alan’s shoulder, a measure of kindness that’s nothing like forgiveness. “It’s gonna be a while and it’s gonna be hard but I meant what I said. It’s better on the other side of it.”

For the longest time, Alan holds Todd’s gaze. “Thank you,” he breathes out, seemingly finding what he’d been looking for.

And there’s something so intimately mundane to it, human like Alan’s never been, that it chips away at the necessary numbness of Todd’s heart. He wants to _try_. Even for an hour. Squeezing Alan’s shoulder, he makes himself ask, “Did you want to stay for dinner?”

Miracle of miracles, Alan smiles -- the faintest sketch of it across his lips.

“I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you ask me, an alan without his breakdowns and anger issues and decades of being an absent father is no alan at all.
> 
> HOPE YOU ENJOYED!!!! find me at @ufonaut on tumblr, we're on permanent alan scott lockdown.


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